The latest decision of the Railway Board to carry out the
operations of South Coastal Railway Zone from Visakhapatnam has become the boon
for the state government as it is making all-out efforts to make Visakhapatnam
as the administrative capital. So far, all the offices, which comes under
Visakhapatnam zone, are presently operating from Secunderabad under the South
Central Railway Zone.
With the formation of South Coastal Railway Zone centred at Visakhapatnam, all
the railway offices coming under this zone will operate under SCoR zone from
April. As part of the Andhra Pradesh Bifurcation Act, the Center divided the
South Central Railway Zone into two. The Railway Board has issued an order to
convert the Visakhapatnam Division into a Southern Coastal Railway Zone, which
includes Vijayawada, Guntur and Guntakal divisions while Secunderabad,
Hyderabad and Nanded divisions under the South Central Railway Zone.
The Center has provided Rs 120 crore for offices and infrastructure in Vishakha. Recently, Visakhapatnam officials have advised the employees to shift to Visakhapatnam soon. The Secunderabad Railway Zone currently employees having 20,000 off which 10 thousand of them had to shift to Visakhapatnam. The senior executive officers are likely to move to Visakhapatnam after Sankranthi and directed the employees to follow them.